For 30 years, Rose Bowl co-host Leeza Gibbons, 67, had a near-constant presence on network television.
From 1984 to 2000, she was a correspondent and co-host of Entertainment Tonight, and the host of her popular daytime talk show Leeza, which ran between 1993 and 2000. At the same time, she became one of the first celebrities to have great success doing infomercials with Guthy-Renker.
But in 2002, the South Carolina native decided to lean into her new passion: helping Alzheimer’s patient caregivers find the resources they need and, most importantly, connect with other caregivers through her nonprofit, Leeza’s Care Connection.
The cause hit close to home after both Gibbons’ mother and grandmother died from the disease — and she vowed to make her beloved mom Gloria Jean Gibbons’ story “count.”
“It’s the greatest work I’ve ever done,” Gibbons says of launching the nonprofit, adding how helpful it is for caregivers to have someone to talk to. “I always say, ‘You can’t heal it if you don’t reveal it.’ There’s tremendous power in feeling heard, in being able to relieve some of the guilt or grief or even frustration felt by caregivers.”
She adds of this path: “It’s the most fun. It’s the most creative; it’s the most dynamic. The only thing that really lasts is how we care for each other. And this puts me in touch with that on a daily basis.”
Still, she says she misses working in TV.
“I wouldn’t say I retired,” Gibbons tells PEOPLE with a laugh. Notably, she’s currently working on producing some exciting upcoming TV projects and, of course, is still hosting the annual Rose Parade on Wednesday, Jan. 1.
“No one has loved their career more than I’ve loved mine. It has been such a fun ride, and I’ve loved every aspect of it,” she reflects. “But I deliberately changed the pace of it when I stepped into what I see as my real calling, which was my nonprofit.”
Gibbons, who has three children with two former partners, and has been married to talent manager and author Steven Fenton since 2011, says she’s fully embraced her “third act” in life.
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“I call it ‘downshifting,’ ” she says of her quieter life now. “It doesn’t mean you’re not in the race anymore. It just means that you’ve found a different lane, and you’re no longer distracted by the other cars on the road. And I think you get such greater clarity of where you’re going and what you want.”
She adds, “I think life comes in three stages. Stage one, you are growing and learning. Stage two, the middle of your life, you’re acquiring and achieving. And then you get to stage three, where I am now, where you get to celebrate and reflect — and start receiving.”
She jokes that she knows how positively positive she sounds.
“My kids always accuse me of being a ‘Pollyanna’ in that I am truly fiercely optimistic,” she says, laughing. “But I think you start out being happy, then there’s some dips along the way, and as you get older, you climb back up that happiness curve. And that’s when you find peace.”
As for the aging part of aging? She’s not bothered by it.
She’s the proud ambassador for Crepe Erase for Guthy-Renker (for decades, her infomercial work with the company has netted north of a billion dollars in sales), but says her true focus is on what’s within.
“I don’t look at people and think, ‘How old are you? I think, ‘How many lives have you lived?'” she says.
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